User talk:Hollowness/Archive January 2010
Items pages Hi Hollowness! I spotted your update about looking at equipment pages and thought I'd drop you a note just to make sure you're aware that Tierrie, amongst others, has recently been (and still is) engaged in a pretty massive overhaul of item info on the wiki - including setting up templates for item pages and pulling in item info from the toolset. So you may want to touch base before making any significant changes just to make sure you don't end up pulling in different directions. I'm sure your input/help would be gratefully received. Zoev 16:28, January 9, 2010 (UTC) :Thanks for your message, Hollowness, and I really look forward to seeing your suggestions for improvements. Just in case I've given the wrong impression, I maybe should make clear that I only dropped you the note suggesting you get in contact with Tierrie because I happened to know about the item work that he and others have been doing ... and I love to see people working together. I'm certainly not speaking in any official capacity, as I don't have one! Zoev 16:50, January 9, 2010 (UTC) ::Thanks for contacting me. Zoev is right - its a work in progress, but there's so much to do that I welcome any help I can get. ::One of the things I wanted to implement down down down the road was the rollover pop-up item description - but that never made it past the concept stage. When I started there seemed to be more pressing items to do - like adding items. ::So, if you'd like to work on a pop up code, I'd appreciate it - and I'd gladly write it into the ItemTransformer and other Templates (or you could do it) --Tierrie 17:12, January 10, 2010 (UTC) :::Unlike WoW and other wikis, this one does not differentiate between enchanted and non enchanted items - simply because this game doesn't have that kind of distinction. Even something as basic as studded leather provides +defense. Secondly, the template you want to look at is Template:Tooltip @ WoWWiki. If you can get that to work with the data provided in ItemTransformer then I can do the rest. As for the images - the best source of icons is the data source. Dragon Age provides us with the Toolset that can extract the icons from in game. That's why some of the icons do not have borders - they were obtained through the toolset. Instead of extracting thousands of icons via print screen and photoshop, its easier to create a icon template that overlays a item border image over a icon image. :::In conclusion, check out the Template:Tooltip and see if you can come up with a popup version of it on your page. --Tierrie 21:17, January 10, 2010 (UTC) AW Dexterity Hi, I'm currently closing on endgame with my Arcane Warrior. I seem to have a bit of an attack problem (hit chance). I have all the AW talents already and I use Combat Magic, of course. So, unless I'm missing something, I think it's better to add points to dexterity even if you're not dual-wielding. I have 19 Dex right now, and I have some +attack items, and still I only hit about 50% of the time. My weapon is the Spellweaver, and I use a shield. So if someone thinks I'm missing something, I would love to know but if not I suggest adding Dex whatever weapon you're using. Please add this to the guide. It's been very helpful so far, thank you Hollowness :) :Even with Sword and Board I'd recommend 26-28 Dexterity. I dual wield and with 30+(Base) Dexterity, my hit is still only 83% hit (but I don't find I really miss that much). I am currently doing game play tests for AW mage testing hit chances (hoping to be at a 95%-100% chance) with my dual wielder and I'll update my findings when I am done and probably test two hand weaps and sword and board. The biggest annoyance is hit is it includes spell hit as well, which, I believe magic or willpower determins that hit chance, so I solo mobs, meleeing with minimal spell casting as I play the game. :My Weapons: Spellweaver (Starfang to tie me over) and The Rose's Thorn or Dead Thaig Shanker (The Edge to tie me over). Hope this helps :) Hollowness 00:28, January 12, 2010 (UTC) Merchant Items Just noticed your edit to Tranquil Proprietor. You might want to check Project Bodahn so there are no conflicts . Loleil 03:56, January 13, 2010 (UTC) :Quote from page:"Merchant Page Layout - Unknown at this time." :) I am updating a few pages Lothering, Broken Circle, Quartermaster (Circle Tower)(stub), Tranquil Proprietor(stub) and I am currently on Bodahn Feddic. If better tables get implemented I won't be crushed :P Hollowness 04:05, January 13, 2010 (UTC) ::Good stuff, just wanted to make sure you were in the loop. Loleil 04:07, January 13, 2010 (UTC) Skills I noticed that you're starting to work on Skills. I just wanted to make sure that that's something you're working on as well. If not, let me know. I'm interested in revamping skills as well. Cheers! --Tierrie 06:33, January 16, 2010 (UTC) Re: Edits I got your message regarding your concerns. Here's what I can do. Right now there's really no place for his notes. The pages for the skills themselves do not exist so its kind of hard for me to tell him, "here, leave the notes regarding Blizzard at the Blizzard page". Leave his notes as is for the time being - even if you feel they are misplaced, they are pertinent. After the skill pages has been created, you can move those notes into the skill pages. -- 20:41, January 18, 2010 (UTC) :I agree with you that its being excessively cluttered. But, wikis prefer cluttered information to no information at all. The Skeleton big might be an opinion - and the fact that it is being discussed might lead it to being debunked. When that happens, then someone (maybe you, maybe me) will delete that line. The rest of the information seems useful. Basically the bottom line is that you want to see it removed, I want to see it moved. -- 21:16, January 18, 2010 (UTC) gifts page.... Would you like me to write a template for you for your gifts page to make it look like Plot Items??? We can use the transformer to ease the process of changeover from ugly tables to nicer looking stuff as Tierre would say.. --Polexian 21:01, January 20, 2010 (UTC) Eye candy.. nah, eye candy is Jessica Alba... :) I'll whip it up real quick and ask Tierre to make the changes to the transformer for us.--Polexian 21:11, January 20, 2010 (UTC) :Oh p.s.. don't have me, but you have to take out the and on |name = Alistair’s Mother’s Amulet because the script adds it for us. Polexian 21:13, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::Ok, as soon as Tierre get's online and updates Template:ItemTransformer to include gifttable style you can start using it with the transformer. ::Once he does that you can use :" I suggest you wait to change Gifts until then, but be sure to look at the display since you will have to change all the names= and type= on the gifts to match what needs to be there and put locations on the item pages also for it to transform. Sould like a lot of work now, but I will start at the bottom of the gift page and work my way up to help you. Here is what it looks like. --Polexian 21:40, January 20, 2010 (UTC) If we took the location tag out of iteminfobox then location could be there but it wouldn't show up, or if you wanted we could do the variable giftdisplaylocation= and that would only show up on the giftdisplay page and not on the iteminfobox. --Polexian 21:58, January 20, 2010 (UTC) :They didn't like the tables. They wanted something Pretty..Polexian 23:23, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::The good thing about using templates is after we get it changed into transformer code all we do is change the main template and all the gift items change. I actually have another idea... how about instead of the item name in the red, we put the person the gift is for and then list all the items under it with the small icon and text to the side?Polexian 23:31, January 20, 2010 (UTC) ::Ok, I wish you luck. One thing though, most of the gift links points to a redirect page back to gifts and then has a ghost page of the item. Very confusing and you can't use ItemTransformer with it until you kill the redirects.Polexian 01:52, January 21, 2010 (UTC) Plot items Does this look better? Plot ItemsPolexian 00:49, January 21, 2010 (UTC) :me too. Do you want me to implement it into Alistairs Gifts for you?Polexian 00:58, January 21, 2010 (UTC) :Here is Alistairs gift on one of my sandboxes. User:Polexian/GiftsTest--Polexian 02:05, January 21, 2010 (UTC) Re: New scheme I've just left a note in the forums . 02:43, January 21, 2010 (UTC) Re: Help: individual skills/spells/talents and templates I read your question a few times but I don't understand the question. Could you phrase it differently or maybe give an example of what you're trying to do? -- 18:01, January 21, 2010 (UTC) ageless N/M. You need to look at the transformer that handles the transformations... Template:WeaponTransformer Template:ArmorTransformer but be careful when you edit, one mistake can cause lots of errors on other pages. Also everything you want to transform to your template you have to have listed on the page. Ageless I put in effects for you there and also on Weapontransfomer. Displays this: it messed up weapon display Polexian 17:52, January 21, 2010 (UTC) :If you need any help with the transformers let me know. I hope my above post helped you out. I'll be on most of the night tonight.Polexian 00:50, January 22, 2010 (UTC) Gifts Great job on the gifts! I'm glad yet kept the table at the end. Polexian 15:58, January 22, 2010 (UTC) No prob. I'm working on the Quests now. I just have to organize the data, since I already have the template. :) Polexian 03:50, January 23, 2010 (UTC) ItemInfoBox If you remove the Category:Item from ItemInfoBox you need to add the category manually to everything that falls under Items. Its probably a better idea to create a SpellInfoBox as its more descriptive and at some point in the future, the two designs can diverge slightly as needed. -- 05:11, January 23, 2010 (UTC) :Hmm, the (Subset)Tranformers are not intended to have Categories attached to them. In fact, one of the reasons (Subset)Transformers were created was because ItemInfoBox was autoincluding Categories:Items to everything. If it's there, it needs to be removed because it causes a huge problem with cursory inclusion. For example, quest or DLC pages that included one or two lines of Weapons were automatically getting included in Category:Items. That defeats the purpose of Categories. The forum topic that discusses this bug is here. -- 06:31, January 23, 2010 (UTC) Healing Spells Efficiency I got it now, thanks a lot. "Magic" category Hi there Hollowness. I just spotted that you're adding the "Magic" category to various spells pages. I created that category to group articles about the lore of magic, thinking that the "Spells" category would be used for gameplay elements. Having pages for the individual spells in the Magic category makes it a bit too cluttered for my purposes as it makes it hard to see the general overview articles. Is it really necessary to put individual spells into both the Magic and Spells categories, or can we just make Spells a sub-category of Magic? (Sorry that the description on the Magic category page doesn't make it absolutely clear what it's for - I fairly recently created it and a bunch of other lore categories and am only slowly making my way through them and tidying them up.) --Zoev 05:47, January 24, 2010 (UTC) :Thanks! Sorry I didn't spot what was happening until you'd done so many pages. By the way, the new spell pages are looking good! --Zoev 06:14, January 24, 2010 (UTC) Spell Table k, sry i just wanted to add that Note there, no idea why all the pics went puff like that. o.O I still dontt think that was me! Category(Random Encounters) Hey I was curious how difficult it'd be to add a new category for random encounters, or at least link to the them from pages such as Brecilian Outskirts, etc if that is the destination required to encounter them. Problem is though I don't know all of the random encounter names(nobody has even added the encounter name for Axameter either). I also never really started any edits from scratch, mostly used what was already present but I had the idea when I spent two hours yesterday travelling to and from Brecilian Outskirts trying to get the axe(with no luck). Mictlantecuhtli 15:05, January 24, 2010 (UTC) How do I take screenshots without the PC visibile, or just crop him out? Mictlantecuhtli 11:32, January 27, 2010 (UTC) Thanks for the encouraging comments, I just wish I had a plan laid out before I started. It's all coming together now though, so it should take me fewer edits per page than what I have been doing since I have a basic blueprint for each page now. With your permission, I would also like to borrow your character template for my own user page ... think that'd be alright? Mictlantecuhtli 15:18, January 28, 2010 (UTC) Spells I noticed you're starting to work on the Spells and wanted to drop a note to let you know that I think its great that someone has taken it up. I think you're doing a great job. And, if you split the Effects up into different subcategories, it would make the spells easier to transform in the future. This is just a suggestion - you don't have to do anything about it. We can take care of it in the future. -- 07:01, January 25, 2010 (UTC) Talents & Spells Hey, I was thinking it would be a really good idea to add the Damage Calculation (Healing (%): (100.0 + Spellpower) * 0.4.) section in those Spell pages, instead of having them in a separate page like it is now. When I started playing Dragon Age the information were there and it was REALLLY HELPFUL. your new version does look better though, but i just htink id be great if you could include these information in hat same page like it was before too. Thanks Talents & Spells will do, Thanks Fycan 12:20, January 25, 2010 (UTC) Re: Icons Heh, my pleasure. I was going to add the icons for the two other Reaver talents as well, but I noticed I hadn't learnt them yet on my only reaver-specced build. If no one adds them by the time he's learnt them, I will add them as well. :) I always look if there are any pictures I can add (I added that overly big picture of the Effort armor :P) or pages I can spell-check, I'd love to be able to contribute more to this wonderful wiki that has helped me so much with the game, but every time I think "I wonder if there's a page on ____", it's already there. :P � Mbones 00:06, January 26, 2010 (UTC) Strength I noticed on your guide for AW that you said to put no points in str. Doesn't this make it so we can't wear heavier armor? Or do you forgo the heavy armor with your dual wield build? :Combat Magic - Magic is now used in place of Strength. So anything that says Requires: 42 Strength will be say Requires: 24 Magic instead for the mage. 22:25, January 26, 2010 (UTC) Thank you for the fast reply, and thank you for your guide it is a big help. :thanks and no problem. 22:58, January 26, 2010 (UTC) Gifts. Are you going to make a new table for the master list of gifts that looks prettier? Polexian 03:41, January 28, 2010 (UTC) :I'd like to contribute a few ideas if you're thinking of redoing the master list of gifts. I think that a comprehensive gift list should do the following - * Be sortable in a way that makes sense. For example, clicking on the Alistair column should sort the gifts in a way that Alistair's preferred gifts come up on top. * Fit in a page width. This one is fairly tough since the width of the page is constrained - especially if viewers do not have wide screens. * Be vertically compressed. To view the entire list, it is already necessary to scroll. Lets keep that scrolling to a minimum * If you use icons, they should make sense. In that the icons immediately be indicative of the response of the receipient :If you can accomplish all this in one table, it is possible that a single table can convey everything that needs to be conveyed. Then we can remove the other tables if they become unnecessary. -- 06:37, January 28, 2010 (UTC) from Tierrie's talk page Yes, I agree. For a look up table the current one, sure it isn't pretty, but it does work. Making it over done won't add to the article. Maybe this should be approved by admins first. 06:45, January 28, 2010 (UTC) :Why oh why.... would we make it sortable? The only reason it is there is to look up mass gifts in alphabetical order. If you want to know what gifts Alistair can receive you need to look at the top of the page, right? ---- Rejects = ×''' Accepts = '-' Likes = '''+(more appropriate than a heart imo) Plot = ※''' (the meaning of this mark is 'reference mark' I find this suitable opposed to the strange smily face we have currently on the gift table) || Wynne || '-' || '-' || '-' || '-' || '-' || '-' || '-' || '''+ || '-' || '-' |- |} ---- There is a rough of what I am thinking. I'll prolly do a proper header and fiddle with a few things and maybe with suggestions try another draft. 20:35, January 28, 2010 (UTC) Re: Template The problem was with the implicit line breaks you left in your template. I removed them and tightened up the code so that there are no white spaces between the includeonly and onlyinclude tags. Now each of these itemmini do not have implicit line breaks - and will be perfect for inclusion into a line table. I also suggest looking at Template:InventoryIcon as it adds a very cute border around each of the icons. I haven't added any documentation yet - but the parameters that it accepts are icon, link, size, quantity (optional), margin-right. Here's an example This is a pint of Ale yum (this is what I am trying to do) stab (the gap is my problem) Hope that helps. Cheers! -- 21:25, January 28, 2010 (UTC) :: Its a tradeoff that cannot be avoided. The solution to make it align is simple. Add a or tag after the line. yum (this is what I am trying to do) stab (the gap is my problem) ::If you're going to use this in a list then you need that clr tags. If you put it in a table, you won't. And that'll depend if you're using this for the Gifts or Merchant page. -- 01:18, January 29, 2010 (UTC) :::Put the after the text. Hide edit and view the code. -- 01:32, January 29, 2010 (UTC) Changing Transformers Hey, is there a reason you needed to add IconMini to RecipeTransformer? If a transformer doesn't need a particular transform, its better to leave it out. And if you do change the code, please update the documentation as well. Thanks! -- 22:20, January 28, 2010 (UTC) :No problem, if you need it then its perfectly okay. I just wanted to check. I love the new look. Its still concise, but now has a pretty icon to go with it. Did Template:InventoryIcon not work out for you? -- 22:45, January 28, 2010 (UTC) ::I just noticed that Ostagar already has a link to Quartermaster which includes the inventory of the merchant. I'd like Ostagar, a page about the location, to remain focused on the location Ostagar. Instead, update the Quartermaster page with your new list and then include a link to it- :: :: :: -- 22:49, January 28, 2010 (UTC) ::::There's a project underway that will list every merchant's inventory. Pwr905 was working on it before he had to take a break. If you're interested in doing it, I can check in with him to see if he'll turn it over to you. -- 23:19, January 28, 2010 (UTC) Re: Spoilers Just wanted to give you a heads up. There's a discussion on spoilers in the forums and the styles have been updated. Let me know what you think, and if you can describe why you like it - that's even better. -- 22:57, January 28, 2010 (UTC) Creature Abilities Hi Hollowness. I recently noticed just how rubbish some of the current information on creature abilities on this wiki is (see, eg, Massive Attack) and given all the great work you've done on talents/skills for the playable character classes wondered whether you'd considered doing something similar for the creature abilities? I admit I'm not sure how I'd start going about such a thing, given that it's harder to get info about creature abilities, but I figured you might have some cunning ideas! 02:05, January 30, 2010 (UTC) :It would be great if you could do that. I have the toollset but I'm rubbish at using it and don't know where to look for the information. I wonder if Tierrie could extract stuff, or tell me how to extract stuff? I'll ask him. 02:22, January 30, 2010 (UTC) ::Hey, Hollowness. Don't know if you spotted it on my talk page, but Tierrie says he may be able to extract Creature ability info for us by some time next week! 03:46, January 30, 2010 (UTC) :::Tierrie has pointed out that there's all sorts of useful information about creature talents and tactics in C:\Program Files\Dragon Age\tools\Source\2DA\packages - these are all in the format of Excel spreadsheets though I think the folder only gets populated if you download the toolset. I could email them to you so you can see if you can make use of them, if you like and if you could let me know your email address (if you prefer to do that out of the public eye, my email address is my username followed by @blueyonder.co.uk). These files contain details of creature tactics and so list the talents the different creatures use, but don't - as far as I can see - give the detailed information about what the talents actually do. I'm not sure if it's going to be possible to provide exactly the same info about creature talents as about those used by playable classes - there are talent scripts in the toolset, but I don't know if/how those could be used to provide user-friendly information. Still, there's a lot of stuff I don't know! 18:53, January 30, 2010 (UTC) ::::Ooh, meant to confirm that I read your message about this, and will wait on your investigation of whether you can get into those .xls docs. Just let me know if/when there's anything I can do to help. 15:30, January 31, 2010 (UTC) ------------------------------------ I only added that one, because I had to update the spiders anyway since Spiderling is a seperate enemy from Giant Spiderling. It was a side effect of editing Dark Forest on my part. Mictlantecuhtli 17:15, January 30, 2010 (UTC) Another one I was tempted to add was the Aura of Weakness, it's a much stronger monster version of Miasma is what it struck me as (unless Miasma shows up as Aura of Weakness in the debuffs also). Though I put up dead links instead. Mictlantecuhtli 23:19, January 30, 2010 (UTC) Oops! Hi Hollowness! Just thought I'd apologize for the confusion over that page that was created that should have gone into the forum - I must have been in the process of moving it whilst you were adding the delete tag! Unfortunately, that seems to mean that I couldn't revert your changes once the page was in its proper location. To prevent this kind of issue, and so it's clear what's being got rid of, perhaps the Delete tag should be added to the top of the page rather than replacing current text, at least unless the current text is downright offensive!? 12:47, January 30, 2010 (UTC) Loghain Mac Tir Info Question I plan to contribute some info concerning Loghain, ranging from the very basic facts (e. g. starting talents and plot talents: for some reason, they are listed for every companion, save Loghain) to a somewhat less trivial data (possible maximization and startegies, DLC dialogue). Since Loghain is a 'secret' companion, I have a hard time deciding which format would be preferable for such spoilers: should I create a brand new article or, perhaps, just fill the missing sub-sections in the existing 'Teyrn Loghain Mac Tir' article? Merchants Hi, Hollwness. Please don't be upset! I've just taken a look at the Merchant talk page and Tennessee Ernie Ford's talk page, and as an outsider I confess I don't get the feeling of any personal issues here - just some excellent points made on both sides and perhaps a bit of miscommunication. I'll weigh into the discussion on Talk:Merchants and try to straighten things out - or at least draw the ire of all parties! 11:25, January 31, 2010 (UTC) :Glad I could help! It's wonderful that you're putting so much time and effort into improving this wiki and I'd absolutely hate for you to feel unappreciated! I've now added my comments to Talk:Merchants and started a new forum topic on how we manage collaboration on this wiki. Perhaps once we get some general principles sorted out, we can have a think about how they apply to merchants specifically. 12:32, January 31, 2010 (UTC) ::It looks like Zoev chimed in. I'll post my two cents, explain my plans Re: Project Bodahn, and see who wants to take charge of that project and be the primary driving force behind it. Did it get resolved to your satisfaction? -- 19:07, January 31, 2010 (UTC) :::Don't worry about it. As long as you have best intentions of the wiki at heart, a lot can be forgiven. -- 19:34, January 31, 2010 (UTC) Gifts Yes! We'd obviously both decided to have a rummage through the recent changes at the same time, and noticed the same issue. 18:35, January 31, 2010 (UTC) :Yeah, I'll bet the same myths keep getting put in again and again. I know they do with the character pages. Now I know you're keeping your eye on gifts (I should have guessed!) I'll give you some time to fix issues rather than wading in, as you know the subject better than I do. 18:39, January 31, 2010 (UTC) Assuming good faith I do not have an issue with your goals for the Merchants page. I don't understand the details of your plans and I hope that you can respect my desire to avoid complicating your future edits. Isn't it possible that two contributors can both believe that they are each, making the wiki better visually and comprehensively, and yet disagree about what better means and how to go about achieving it? Please assume good faith on my part, as I do on yours. Thank you. — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 23:04, January 31, 2010 (UTC)